Arianna Melchiorri 21-938-022
Book that I’m frien with: ANDERER VERSUCH SEINER ARCHITEKT
As I explained in the previous tasks, in my book there are very few text paragraphs. Instead, it is full of images, or better, drawings. From this point I decided to search books that are similar to mine depending mainly on their content (images and drawings).
I opened Alice (Alice’s Brain was always Xenotheka Library): as a topic of conversation I initially used Architecture. In the searching box I entered the words Cut, Plan, Views, Buildings, but nothing interesting appeared. Then I tried using German words, but I still didn’t find anything. I tried to change the topic of conversation to Architekten and I insert in the searching box the word Zeichnungen. I started to find some interesting books:
Ruffiniere du Prey, The Villas of Pliny. This book was following the criteria of research. In it we can find lots of images and drawings, but a lot of text too.
Lavin, Past Present. This book was also following the research criteria, but its main subject is not architecture. Infact, looking at its page, we see lots of statues, famous painting, sketches and other strange types of art. That was not what I was looking for.
I changed the topic: Architektur. Research words: Rom, Zeichnungen, Gebäude.
Now 2 of the most satisfactory research.
Blunt, Guide to Baroque Rome. I liked this book because somehow it wanted to show the baroque’s architecture in Rome as Johann Rudolf Fäsche, the author of my friend-book, wanted to show the buildings that he has drawn for all the book’s reader. In this book we also have a similar subdivision of the contents. There are 7 main chapters, each one is dived in smaller ones. Different from Anderer Versuch Seiner Architect is that it has some texts, but there are the explanation of the drawing that the viewer is looking at. As in the reference, we often see views, cuts and plans too.
Mattie, Architectural Competitions 1792 1949. This book is more “international” than the other one. It talks about different important buildings in many different cities, not only in Rome: we go from The White House in Washington to the Reichstag in Berlin, from the Valhalla near Ratisbon to the Place of The Soviets, in Moscow. After a brief introduction for each monument, we have a large series of images that try to describe the building the best. This process, even if the pictures were not always plans, cuts, or views, reminded me of my friend-book.
Topic: Architecture, Words: 1700 hand drawings.
Barry, The Rome of Piranesi. This book has in common with Anderer Versuch Seiner Architect, as the research indicates, a lot of hand drawings. It is divided in two parts. The first one is the most different from my reference, since, added to some images of drawings, it contains a lot of text. The second one has less text and more images illustrating hand drawings of that time.
I also wanted to find a book that had the same time epoque as my reference. Piranesi has lived in the 18th century, as Johann Rudolf Fäsche. I found interesting knowing how Rome looked like during his life.